No ensemble has been more devoted to championing works by living composers than the Da Capo Chamber Players. Now in its 40th anniversary season, the New York-based quintet continues to take audiences on intriguing sonic journeys.

The crackerjack Da Capo musicians did so again Thursday at the Cleveland Institute of Music's Mixon Hall, where they wound up a joint residency at CIM and Cleveland State University with a concert of works by composers from those schools and other notable new-music figures.

Da Capo flutist Patricia Spencer made it a point to thank CIM composition head Keith Fitch and CSU faculty member Greg D'Alessio for the works they wrote for the ensemble that received world premieres on this occasion.

Both pieces are splendid creations likely to gain favor with ensembles and listeners alike. Fitch's "Midnight Rounds" explores a spectrum of glistening instrumental colors as the players share and transform a wistful theme introduced by the clarinet.

REVIEW

Da Capo Chamber Players

Moments of stillness give way to eruptive gestures and cloudy harmonies. The keyboardist (Da Capo's intrepid Blair McMillen) occasionally plays piano and celesta at the same time. In its haunting fusion of materials and textures, the work casts an otherworldly spell.

The concert's third local entry was Two Pieces for Violin and Piano, a 1993 work by CSU composition head Andrew Rindfleisch, that travels between spiky interplay and mournful reflection. The violin's G-string is tuned down a half-step, affording an alternate range of resonant possibilities, with the piano often going to the extremes of its range.

The "oldest" score on the program, from 1962, includes the most ancient music, from the 15th-century. In "Bearbeitungen ueber Das Glogauer Liederbuch," Charles Wuorinen puts a distinctive sonic spin on six miniatures, which keep the players – Spencer, Macomber, clarinetist Meighan Stoops and cellist Andre Emelianoff – in piquant and buoyant motion.

The two movements in Samuel Zyman's "Musica para cinco" fluctuate between swinging riffs and romantic dreaminess, showing deep affection for the past while also cooking spicily in the present.

The musicians ended the evening with Marc Mellits' "Spam," which manages to echo fragments without any sense of repetitive monotony. It's a skittish charmer, full of motoric life and winsome personality. Such infectious "Spam" should never be deleted.